Into the Howling Dark
by MysteryTrek
Summary: One-Shot! Sequel to It's Hour Come Round at Last. Mabel Pines has been carrying around a lot of weight since the battle that ended her time in Gravity Falls. A weight of guilt and shame that's held her back ever since. Now though, the three Pines return to Gravity Falls to attend the opening of the memorial to that battle, and Mabel is finally forced to confront her feelings.


They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:  
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.  
At the going down of the sun and in the morning,  
We will remember them."

-Robert Laurence Binyon, CH (August 10, 1869-March 10, 1943),"For the Fallen"

"The thundering line of battle stands,  
And in the air death moans and sings;  
But Day shall clasp him with strong hands,  
And Night shall fold him in soft wings."

-Julian Grenfell, DSO (March 30,1888-May 26, 1915) "Into Battle"

"You can cast off the name of slave and trample upon it; it will come to you no more. Liberty is your birthright. God gave it to you as He gave it to others, and it is a sin that you have been deprived of it for so many years."

-President Abraham Lincoln (February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865), 16th President of the United States of America

"It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule."

-John Ronald Reuel Tolkien CBE, FRSL (January 3, 1892-September 2, 1973), _The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King_

Into the Howling Dark

 _Mabel Pines bobbed and weaved through the forest, running from the explosions, and the screams of men and women torn to pieces that tore the forest up behind her as she ran. She slid between two oak trees, the branches digging like claws through the yarn of her sweater as she continued her run._

 _The word shrunk in front of her, all she could see was the trees ahead of her as one thought ran through her numbed mind ran over and over and over again:_ I have to get home _. Abruptly, Mabel felt the world under her feet pitch upwards towards her. Her arms reached out instinctively as she slammed into the ground. The rough rocks and sticks cut into her hands as she struggled to right herself._

 _Glancing down, she noticed on her arms where the branches had clawed at her. Her foot moved forward as she made to push herself off the ground and continue in her headlong flight._

 _As she pushed herself up off the ground, the underbrush rustled as heavily armed soldiers, in forest camouflage gear, helmets, and full body armor ran forward past her._

 _She opened her mouth, to scream at them, tell them to run, to save themselves. But no words came out, and all she could do was stand there , tears running down her face as she watched as a steady of stream of men and women ran towards the hell she'd just ran out of._

Mabel Pines bolted forward in her bed, breathing heavily, blinking back the grit of sleep and tears.

Sighing, she grabbed her phone off her nightstand and woke it up. It was July 17, she noted with a distressed sigh. In two weeks, she and her twin brother Dipper would turn seventeen. Her brother's wife and closest friend Pacifica would turn seventeen three days later.

And in exactly one week, the four year anniversary of the bloodiest single day in American military history would be upon them. A day that, though it wasn't even remotely close to common knowledge, had centered around the three of them.

Had centered around her.

She didn't understand. Four years of constant soul-searching hadn't yielded a single reason as to why her life was worth the rivulets of blood that had spilled out to defend it. Or the rivulets of blood that were shed in an all-or-nothing, do or die effort to end her life, the life of her brother, and the life of Pacifica.

More than that, there was one inescapable fact: if it hadn't been for her, none of this would have happened.

 _She_ let herself get talked into going out with Gideon. _She_ encouraged his interest in her, in the naïve delusion that he was reasonable enough to accept her as a friend and let his desire for a "romance" with her go.

She didn't realize until it was almost too late that the "love" of Gideon Gleeful was not so lightly thrown aside. Hadn't realized that he didn't actually love her, if he had, he would have been willing to respect her wishes no matter how much it hurt personally. He hadn't, and he'd tried to cut out her brother's tongue with a pair of lamb shears, an act which probably would have killed him in the process. Then he'd thrown her family off what had once been their land, and tried to seize her as his own with a giant mech. Then when her brother put paid to that plan, in one last gamble, he and Pacifica's "father," consumed with his desire to "punish his wayward daughter" for having the gall to actually be loyal to the country she'd been raised all her life to betray gathered their followers and set in motion a military disaster the likes of which had not been seen in North America for one hundred and fifty years. All in one last mad dash to have even a fleeting revenge.

 _Why?_ She thought, resisting the urge to throw her phone at the wall in sheer anger and frustration. _We were three kids, why were our lives worth so much blood. Why did fifteen thousand good men and women have to die?_ And she was responsible for all of it.

She sighed and flopped back in her bed, staring at the ceiling. _How,_ she wondered, _were Dipper and Pacifica handling it_?

* * *

 _Pacifica looked through the abandoned C-14 Timberwolf's telescopic sight out the open attic window, finger curved around her trigger as she stared out into the hell the lands surrounding the Mystery Shack had become. She could smell what filled the battlespace, the cordite smell from the explosions that ripped through the area between the Shack and the far end of Gravity Falls; the smell of burning gasoline and metal from where the Apache helicopters providing overwatch and fire support had been shot down in the last half hour._

 _And no others had been bought up to support them, which didn't say anything good about what was going on at their bases._

It must be pure chaos over there, _she thought,_ but that doesn't explain why we're not getting reinforced, unless…they're under attack as well.

 _She looked out. The fighting had been fierce ever since the Royal Highland Regiment of Canada and a battalion of the Oregon Army National Guard had been caught completely by surprise by the army her father and Gideon had, apparently, been assembling for years without her knowledge. The army she'd only just now realized that she had in fact been in the process of being groomed to lead._

And here I thought he was simply encouraging my interests, _she thought angrily. She wanted to be a soldier since she was seven, and thought that he was supporting her legitimate interests. Not that he was preparing her since she was little to destroy the country she wanted to grow up to serve. And everyone else in the vicinity._

 _She sighed angrily, she shouldn't even still be here. The MysteryShack started out as Lieutenant General Jeremy Richard's headquarters, but the fighting turned rapidly against the NATO forces (mostly Americans and Canadians) in the area. General Richards and his staff evacuated to the research bunker in the woods and reestablished their command there. They were supposed to go with them, but the evacuation was incomplete. Richards and his staff officers managed to evacuate, but the high-energy weapons that blasted apart a dozen AH-64s in the space of thirty seconds forced them and the rest of the remaining people at the Shack to stay inside._

 _Her father's forces had taken advantage of the confusion to close up on the MysteryShack, making it too dangerous to try to make it to the bunker on their own. It had also forced two companies of the Fifth Marines, and one company of the Royal Winnipeg Rifles, to string themselves out in a hastily thrown together defensive line designed to keep the Mystery Shack and the command bunker in the woods from being overrun as long as possible._

 _Which would doubtless made easier with the air support they were supposed to have, but there wasn't any. No new AH-64s firing Zuni rockets into the teeth of the advancing enemy, no A-10 Warthogs with their Avenger autocannons and Maverick missiles strafing their positions. They were out on a limb, facing a force with superior weapons derived from the Journals. The only way they'd managed to stay in the game this long, and execute a fighting withdrawal was air support. But their air support was gone…_

 _She looked at the map on the attic wall. Downstairs had been Richard's corps command post, but the attic had been the_ Second Battalion's _command post and the carefully detailed tactical map of Gravity Falls and the immediate area was covered in unit markers. Two-thirds of them had been filled in with red marker. Two-thirds of the units represented on that map had been wiped out._

God help us all _, she thought to herself when the underbrush outside suddenly rustled. She tensed, taking in a deep calming breath as she remembered her junior marksmanship training. She was an excellent shot, but shooting at a bullseye on a shooting range was a hell of a lot different than shooting at an actual person that wasn't on her Xbox._

 _Dipper Pines burst out of the underbrush, running at full speed towards the house. Pacifica's eyes widened and she jerked her sight off of him impulsively as he ran for the house._

Idiot boy _, fighting off the urge to slap him as soon as he got upstairs, or kiss him. Or both. Or something._

 _The underbrush rustled again, and she shifted her sight to see a huge, hulking brown-haired man with seemingly pure white eyes , wearing the faintly glowing blue armor worn by her father's rebels. He raised his laser rifle, drawing a bead on his quarry._

Dipper _! Her panicked mind screamed, as another surge of adrenaline flooded her. She fought it down desperately, and took another deep breath before drawing a bead of her own, and firing. Her shot sent a .338 caliber barreling downrange, and so close that not even Gideon's fancy armor was enough to defeat_ that _shot and he dropped to the ground as though he'd ran headlong into a brick wall…_

Pacifica Elise Pines bolted awake, breathing in sharp, panicky breaths as her still waking brain frantically tried to figure out where and who she was.

Her breathing slowed as her memory and her identity reasserted themselves. Her name was Pacifica Pines, not Northwest. And she couldn't be happier.

"Pacifica?" A sleepy male voice said from next to her. She looked to see her husband of a few weeks, shooting her a concerned look.

She opened her mouth, prepared to issue an automatic denial that there was anything wrong. What she'd been doing since before she and Dipper became boyfriend and girlfriend, then husband and wife?

But she didn't, and silence reigned in their bedroom as Pacifica met her husband's gaze. She owed her his life, and him hers, a dozen times over. If she couldn't trust him with something like this, she had no business being married to him.

"I was having a dream of the Siege," Pacifica said softly. "Where you were running in from town after you and Mabel got separated, and I killed Ghost Eyes."

Dipper, eyes widened at the fact that she hadn't automatically denied there was anything wrong, propped himself up.

"Are you okay?" he finally said after a moment.

Pacifica sighed. "Yeah. It's just getting close to that time of year again."

She felt Dipper's strong arms wrap around her. "I know, love." Pacifica felt her tears begin to build up in her eyes, as the guilt that, on some level, was always there. The fact remained that her father and Gideon had tried to "justify" their actions by claiming that they were only responding to her and Mabel's "provocations." That as Pacifica's father he had every right to return his daughter to his custody by whatever means were necessary, and that Gideon was motivated by a genuine desire to "deprogram Mabel from the obviously pernicious influence of her dangerously violent brother and criminal great-uncle."

Said the man who insisted on exercising his right to represent himself at what was, by any measure, the most important criminal trial in the history of the Western Hemisphere, following on the most important battle in the history of the Western Hemisphere.

And it worked out about as well as one would expect. Preston Northwest was sentenced to death, a sentence that was finally been carried out a month ago, and if there was any justice Gideon would never again see the outside of the mental health system. Elaine Northwest (nee Roberts) disappeared, having gone on the run soon after she'd been blackmailed into signing over guardianship to Shannon Cassidy, Dipper's maternal aunt. And so, the domestic policy decision that had proved to be the bloodiest, most-costly-over-the-long-term in American history since that winter of 1860 which saw seven Southern states leave the Union, at last came to its own bloody, fiery end.

But the shadow it cast over human events was going to be a long one, as the recent events surrounding one Thomas Salvatore and Briarwood, which, without her father, would have gone nowhere, indicated. Two months later, and they just finished excavating and identifying the last of the remains of the children that were discarded.

And with their new positions in the Special Branch they had access to the official reports as they came in, and it was just as revolting as they'd feared.

Added to the plans that may be waiting to be uncovered in the Northwest files, and the fact that her mother, the last human being alive to bear the name Northwest by birth or marriage was at large, and she didn't know what the future was going to hold. The United States and Canada had been grappling with the results of that decision for the previous four years, and likely would be dealing with it for years to come.

She was jolted out of her own head by a loud rapping on their bedroom door.

"Who is it?" Dipper called out as he disentangled himself from his wife.

"It's me," Mabel's muffled voice. "Am I interrupting anything?"

"No," Dipper and Pacifica said. "What do you want, Mabel?" Dipper said, concerned.

"It's that time of year again and I wanted to talk to someone about it."

"Come in," Dipper said, and the door opened to reveal a very forlorn looking Mabel in her bedazzled yellow pajama shirt and flannel pants.

Dipper pushed his covers aside, and walked over to his sister, arms outstretched. Mabel reached out for her brother, who pulled her into a tight hug. Pacifica, eyes glistening with unshed tears pushed aside her own side of the comforter.

"It'll be okay, Mabel," Dipper said softly.

"How? How when everything that happened that day is my fault?"

"Oh, for the love of God," Dipper said through a long-suffering sigh. "Why do you persist on blaming yourself for the actions of others? Yes, they wanted to get their paws on you and Pacifica? In no way does that make it 'your' fault? You're a victim, not a perpetrator."

"But if I'd never gone out with Gideon in the first place and never gone to that damn show, a lot of people might still be alive!"

"Hindsight is twenty-twenty Mabel," Dipper said, "but that doesn't change the fact that you are responsible for none of Gideon's actions, any more than my wife is actually responsible for anything her father did."

Mabel looked away from her brother, squinting in pain, as tears slid down her face. "God, I wish I could convince myself of what you were saying."

Pacifica was about to add her own two cents to the conversation when all three of their smartphones beeped at once, indicating that a new email had been sent to her secure government account. She reluctantly grabbed her phone and turned it on, to see it was an email from Trigger:

 _Provisional Agents,_

 _At the behest of the President I've been ordered to extend an invitation to the dedication ceremony of the Gravity Falls Memorial Military Park. Senior officials from the American and Canadian governments, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission will be in attendance along with the friends and family of many of the soldiers who died there. The President also directed us to inform you that he understands how traumatic those events were for the three of you and that you are in no way required to attend. Even if you are probies._

 _Sincerely,_

 _Maxwell Trigger, Assistant Special Agent-in-Charge, Special Branch_

"Guys," Pacifica said. "The President wants us at the dedication ceremony at the new memorial."

Total silence reigned as Dipper and Mabel stared at her - as though she had just casually admitted she was a werewolf.

"What?" Dipper and Mabel said at once before Dipper pulled out his phone.

"I think we should go," Dipper said after a moment. "And I think you should go too. We're about to embark on a whole new chapter of our lives. Paz and I are married now. We need to put this behind us, all of us, and we should probably do it now. "

"No," Mabel said, shaking her head, eyes wide. "I can't. I can't face them. If it weren't for me, their sons and daughters would still be alive. "

Dipper opened his mouth to object, again, but Mabel smoothly overrode him.

"No, Dipper," Mabel said firmly. "And nothing either one of you can say will make me."

"Because Mabel Jennifer Pines is not a coward," Dipper said pointedly.

Mabel looked at him, eyes widened, and jaw slack, before turning and walking out of the room, closing the door behind her without another word.

After the echo from the slammed door faded, Dipper sighed and collapsed back onto the bed. "Oh, that was stupid," he whispered harshly.

"No, baby," Pacifica said, "it wasn't. You and I both know that the one thing she hates after Gideon's guts is being accused of cowardice. If you made her realize that's she's not being brave about all this, then she's become more receptive of this whole idea. Not less."

* * *

"I," Dipper heard his sister mutter sullenly from the passenger seat, "can't believe I let the two of you talk me into doing this."

"Yeah," he said with an irritated tone from the driver's seat of the Rolls-Royce Phantom he'd gotten from his wife, "well, we'll be coming up on Gravity Falls in a few minutes, so we're not turning back now."

Mabel gave a resigned sigh. "I know."

Dipper flinched, her tone stabbing to the heart of his own memories of the Siege. It had been the single worst day of his life too. "Look, Mabel, I know this will be tough on you. It'll be tough on all of us. Or did you forget when we got separated early on? I was caught in the fighting near Wendy's old place?"

Some of the worst fighting on that day had been an all out attack on the Texas Division, an attempt by Preston Northwest to turn the American-Canadian right flank, that had been held back, barely, by the 36th Infantry Division, the Texas Division (which also included National Guard units from Oklahoma, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Arkansas .)

His original goal had been to try to get through the fighting, to get to Wendy and get her and her family out of there but the fighting was too intense.

And he witnessed it, watching soldiers get shot down by laser blasts that immolated every internal organ at once and bypassing Kevlar body armor as though they weren't even there.

And still they fought. They stood their ground against an enemy armed with weapons technology four centuries ahead of their own.

"We're coming into town," Pacifica said as they rounded the bend into Gravity Falls.

The town bounced back from the warzone it was four years ago. The layout remained the same, and much of the buildings were still there. Tobey's small newspaper shop, the police station, the mall, nothing much had changed on that score.

But like all cities that bore the scars of armed conflict, it wasn't quite the same as it was before the Siege, and never would be again. There were still some small signs of damage. Many of the houses they passed still bore what were unmistakably bullet holes. Some public buildings like the library, had been so badly damaged they'd simply been torn down and rebuilt somewhere else.

And then, of course, there were the memorials. Some were small, placards marking places where men and women had fought and killed and died for their countries, before being slaughtered to the last or being forced to retreat.

But the biggest and most prominent of all, at least from their vantage point, was the one on top of Northwest Hill.

The mansion, of course wasn't there anymore. It had mostly been destroyed in the fighting. The rest of it was torn down to keep anyone from taking souvenirs. In its place was a thirteen foot tall bronze statue, of a soldier, tired unto death but still on his feet. His rifle pointed towards the enemy on a twenty-six foot tall polished marble column- as a tribute to the two combat units, one American, one Canadian, that were attacked at Northwest Manor, kicking off the bloodiest single day battle in American military history, and altering forever the course of their lives.

* * *

"What," Dipper said thirty minutes later as he and Pacifica pulled the sheets off the bed in the hotel they'd checked into, not trusting the…cleanliness of most hotel bedspreads. "Are we going to do about Mabel? I'm worried about her, Pax. More than I worry about you and your issues."

"Every soldier has nightmares, Dipper, not just Mabel. I do. And you do. I've seen you wake up terrified in the middle of the night more than once since we started sneaking in and out of each other's beds."

Dipper shuddered. He had nightmares about the Siege. He'd nearly died twice and almost watched both Pacifica and his sister die. More than enough to give a man nightmares to the day he died, even if nothing else had happened.

"That's different," Dipper said pointedly, "and you know it. Unlike us, Mabel actually believed those two sonsofbitches when they tried to blame their actions on the two of you." He sighed, fighting back tears. "She…she actually thinks her life wasn't worth what happened. All she sees is fifteen thousand people dying over her. There were larger issues at work there, and more at stake than just our lives and we both know it."

"But we _were_ the excuse," Pacifica said pointedly. "Preston really did want me back in his custody and Gideon did want Mabel as his captive queen, and they both wanted revenge on you. We were more than just a convenient pretext for their final bid to carry out their delusions through military force. They were going to launch that bid regardless, but they _did_ want us."

"None of which makes it anything other than their fault."

"True," Pacifica pointed out. "But you saying that over and over again isn't going to seriously convince her that she's been going about this wrong. She needs to see that for herself. And because this is something she's going to have to do herself, let's just table this for the night, okay?"

"I know but-" only to find Pacifica's hand gently covering his mouth.

"No more tonight, Dipper," she said, favoring him with a slow smile. "I'm tired, and I want to go to bed early. We have a busy day tomorrow."

Dipper nodded, helping Pacifica finish laying the sheets on the bed in silence. They put the comforter on as he remembered something else that had happened in the past couple days. Something that had happened earlier, but he'd set aside because he was so focused on what was going on with Mabel.

"Pacifica," Dipper said as he walked around to her side of the bed.

"Yes, hon-" she began before she was cut off by his arms wrapping around her.

"You opened up to me," Dipper said softly, his voice choking on unwept tears of joy as he hugged the woman he loved to him fiercely. "You finally opened up to me a couple days ago. After years and years of trying to get you to talk about your issues without me having to get on your case, you finally didn't try to blow it off as nothing."

She felt Pacifica's arms wrap around him. "I'm done with the games, Dipper," she said. "If I can't trust you with my problems, I can't trust anyone, and I have no business being married to you. You spoke of a new chapter in our lives? We can't have that unless I'm willing to talk to you. Because," and she closed her eyes. "Because if I don't open up to you on that…" and she sighed, "it'll end our relationship and destroy our marriage."

"I'll never leave you," Dipper said feelingly, stung by the very notion. At this point, about the only thing that could make him leave her was if he genuinely fell in love with someone else, and he'd rather die than cheat on her. Sure he resented it when she refused to talk to him about her issues, but surely those fleeting feelings of resentment weren't going to be enough to kill their relationship in the long-term. Was it?

"Yes, you will, or I'll leave you," Pacifica said, softly but firmly, "one of us will have too, if I don't stop that. I know you hate it when I act like that; I know I'm being unreasonable, and if I keep acting like that you will start to resent me for it. And once that happens, we'll be beyond saving. And I'll lose you forever, and I can't do that. I can't…imagine my world without you in it. And I know some women will act like I'm some sort of sellout for 'needing a man.' But I don't need 'a man.' I need you."

Dipper kissed her, hard, as his tears slid down his face, filled by a surety and faith in his wife that almost scared him. "I'll be here. I'll always be right here."

* * *

"I'll be here. I'll always be right here," Mabel Pines heard her brother say to his wife through the seemingly paper-thin walls that separated their room.

She smiled, despite the roiling pain and despair in her gut. She couldn't help it. She loved her brother and her sister-in-law, and had come to much the same conclusion regarding Pacifica's issues. They'd fought, like all couples fought. More than once she'd found herself listening to an argument over the past five years that could have peeled paint off the walls, but they'd never let it make them lose sight of their feelings for each other.

Her inability to open up to Dipper about her issues without having a PTSD flashback or Dipper having to hound her about it was another thing. The resentment stemming from that: Dipper resenting the fact that the woman he loved didn't seem to entirely trust him, and Pacifica resenting him for being pushy, really would have poisoned the well and would have seen the end of their marriage.

It was good to see that, at least, be dealt with. Pacifica was finally starting to move past her issues, and in the process, the one internal threat to the relationship between the two of them, who'd grown so close that she and no one she knew could mention one without the other, was gone.

All that was left was her.

Tears streamed down her face, as she finally saw in herself the problem she'd recognized in others. She knew that her brother didn't like it when she went on about what happened. Didn't like it at all, and she'd known intellectually that Dipper was right. And she could see Dipper, holding her back from battle, from a mission she could easily complete because of concerns about her ability to handle it.

And she'd resent him for it, and the cycle would begin _again_ that would destroy the relationship with the only brother she would ever have.

And there was only one way she could see to end it before it began

Her trembling hand reached for the phonebook, she flipped through it to the number she wanted, and pulled out her cellphone.

" _Gravity Falls Taxi Company_ ," a faintly bored female voice said on the other end.

"Hi," Mabel began. "I need a ride out to the new Memorial Park? Where the Mystery Shack used to be? I'm one of the invitees who has access to tour the site before the dedication ceremony tomorrow."

Twenty minutes later, she found herself getting out of the bright yellow taxi cab, deliberately looking away from the site as she did so. She wanted to see this herself. She had to do this herself. She handed the cab driver the money, with a generous tip.

"Thank you," she said courteously.

The young twenty something blonde cab driver shot her a sympathetic look. "No problem," she said. "And, whatever happened, whoever you lost here, my condolences."

Mabel flinched as though struck, but took a deep breath and nodded.

The cab driver nodded back before she rolled the window up and drove off.

She watched as the cab drove away, headed back towards town, before giving a deep sigh and turning around to face the Mystery Shack.

She stopped, rooted to the spot, at the sight before her, a sight she'd held off until this very moment.

Where forest and bare soil had once stood, was now a verdant carpet of freshly green grass, surrounded by a wrought-iron fence with an open gate. The building that had once been the Mystery Shack, now presumably the visitor's center, stood just behind it.

And just behind the Shack, on either side, she could see the first headstones.

She swallowed the lump in her throat and walked forward towards the open gate. A metal glint in the setting sun caught her eye however, and she looked to see a bronze cabinet attached to the fence with a cross etched into it. Curious, she walked over and opened it.

Inside was a thick book, in bound leather. She looked at the cover.

 _The American Battle Monuments Commission and the Commonwealth War Graves Commission solemnly and proudly present the Gravity Falls International Memorial Cemetery._

She opened it to the first page and began to read the introduction:

 _In the late summer of 2012, the bloodiest single day battle in the history Western Hemisphere, took place outside a small town in Oregon, United States of America. Over thirteen thousand American and more than two thousand Canadian servicemen and women lost their lives on that tragic September afternoon. By memorandum of understanding between the United States of America, Canada and the five other Commonwealth countries that coordinate their activities via the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, the CWGC has stepped beyond it's traditional role of memorializing only those servicemen and women from the Commonwealth of Nations who fell in the First and Second World Wars and collaborated with the ABMC to design and build this cemetery. Together with the American Legion and the Last Post Fund, the ABMC and the CWGC hope to honor and preserve the memories of the men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice on September 22, 2012._

 _This grave is unique in it's combination of American and Commonwealth iconography, hearkening to the designs of those graves maintained across the world by the ABMC and the CWGC. Each fallen servicemen and woman buried here has the headstones traditionally issued by their respective governments or the CWGC. The plots are not divided by nationality, only by alphabetical order._

 _For it's both fitting and right that those who fought and died together as comrades in arms should rest together._

 _"Went the day well?_

 _We died and never knew._

 _But, well or ill,_

 _Freedom, we died for you."_

 _-John Maxwell Edmonds_

 _"We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."_

 _-Abraham Lincoln, 16th President of the United States of America_

Mabel's eyes were blurring with tears as she put the book back and closed the door. She fought herself back under control and walked through the open gate towards the gate.

Mabel had wandered out the backdoor to the Mystery Shack when she saw it, placed right in front of the back door to be the first thing she and anyone else saw when she opened it up. Something she'd only ever seen in pictures. A huge limestone block, in a shape evocative of a sarcophagus set on three limestone steps. On it was etched an inscription that cut right to Mabel's heart. An inscription chosen a hundred years earlier by Rudyard Kipling himself from the Wisdom of Sirach.

"THEIR NAME LIVETH FOR EVERMORE"

 _A Stone of Remembrance_ , she thought to herself, in something approaching awe. She looked behind it for the other common element to all CWGC cemeteries with more than forty graves. Her artist's eyes widened when she found it at the far end of the cemetery, across the reflecting pool, directly opposite the Stone of Remembrance (and in fact, where her junior great-uncle's first research base had been located before it had been blown apart towards the end of the summer). There stood a limestone Latin Cross on a limestone pedestal with a hint of Celtic proportions, particularly in how far up the shaft the crossarm was. Affixed to it was a stylized bronze broadsword, blade-down, with the crossguard laid out on the crossarm.

 _The Cross of Sacrifice_ , she thought to herself, as tears welled in her eyes. That was something she had seen. Her school trip to D.C. had ended with her, Dipper, Melanie, and Pacifica at Arlington National Cemetery, where an (albeit smaller…slightly) Cross of Sacrifice was installed. It had originally been built in honor of the many thousands of Americans who, during the American period of neutrality in the First World War (which was most of the war), had slipped across the border and enlisted in the Canadian armed forces. Subsequent inscriptions had been added for the Americans who'd done the same in the Second World War and Korea. That one had been twenty-four feet high. The one she was staring at now was a full thirty feet in height, the highest typically allowed by the CWGC.

She looked out over the rows and rows of headstones in each plot. As the vast majority of the servicemen and women who'd died that day were Americans, they were largely standard Veterans Administration provided headstones, a simple headstone of either granite, marble, or bronze. Interspersed among them however, in every plot, were mixed in what were, to the eyes of a woman whose love of art had ensured that she studied things like this, were unmistakably CGWC headstones. They were made of Portland Stone, with either the Canadian Royal Arms or the coat of arms of their regiment on it, with, in most cases, a Christian cross and a personalized inscription from the family.

And growing among all the plots were red poppies, a common cultural motif in both countries. And there were lots of poppies, glowing bright orange-red in the light of the setting sun

She looked out over the rows of headstones, and saw on either side of her, carved granite eagles, and just beyond the eagle on her left, a small granite and marble nondenominational chapel. Mabel sighed, her soul-deep pain redoubling on itself, and she began to walk in it's direction.

 _This is somewhat more modest_ , she thought to herself as she entered the small chapel. There were a few pews made of oak, probably carved from the trees that used to grow on that land, and an altar with wireframe brass representations of the Great Seal of the United States and the Royal Coat of Arms of Canada, flanked by the American and Canadian flags.

Overcome by her grief and self-hatred, she finally collapsed into one of the pews, leaning back to stare at the ceiling.

Her tears began to flow. It's beautiful, all of it. But none of it should be here. None of it should have happened. Not for her. Not for some stupid girl who should have been able to prevent all this in the first place.

She closed her eyes, letting her tears flow down her face. Not noticing as she got drowsier and drowsier, lulled into her sleep by the sound of the waterfall.

 _Mabel Pines opened her eyes to see everything around her glowing with a bright light, shimmering in front of her vision._ Mmm, _she thought._ That's new.

 _"Hey, dude," a familiar male voice said from behind her. A voice she hadn't heard in four long years and never thought to hear again in this life._

 _"Soos!" She shouted, bolting upright out of her pew, her feet charging towards the overweight, brown-skinned handyman who'd been her friend that entire summer. And who she'd left to die at his own urging to ensure that Bill Cipher was locked away behind a door that could never be opened again. She catapulted into her friend's arms._

 _"What are you doing here? I thought you were dead."_

 _A wan smile appeared on his face. "I am dead, dude."_

 _"Oh," she said, sagging in his arms, heart aching. "Right."_

 _"But I am worried about you," Soos said, concerned. "You've been blaming yourself for all the horrible stuff that happened here, and blaming yourself for still being alive."_

 _Mabel sniffed. "Of course it has. It's my fault. And why shouldn't I? Why am I alive when you and so many other people aren't? I'm the reason they're out in this field at all, the least I could have done was have the decency to die for putting them there."_

 _Soos leaned down, giving her a hard look she'd rarely seen before on his face. "Now that's enough. Look around you, Mabel. These people didn't die 'just for three kids.' Yes they died for you three munchkins. But through you, they also died for the laws and ideals those flags on the wall represent. Be honest, with me, if no one else. Do you really think Gideon and Mister Northwest were going to stop with you and Paz?"_

 _She sighed. "No, of course not."_

 _"'Of course not.' They were going to take you and keep right on going. It would have shattered any faith people had in their governments, and in their militaries, and even if they eventually lost, it would have in all likelihood spelled the end of democracy and the rule of law anyway. And that, at the end of the day, all their fancy oaths our leaders take meant nothing." After a few moments, he smirked, "Damn. I didn't know I could say something so eloquent."_

 _Mabel smirked back, even as she remembered the day, a few weeks past, in that same conference room where she and her friends had been given their new jobs, placed her hands on her old children's Bible and recited the very oath Soos was referring too._

"I, Mabel Jennifer Pines, do solemnly affirm that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter. So help me God."

 _"I swore that 'fancy oath' myself you know," Mabel said, her voice firm as she finally understood the point Dipper, Pacifica, and now Soos had been trying to make to her. "And I meant every word of it."_

 _"So did those people out there," Soos responded. "That's why they put their lives on the line. Those things like the Bill of Rights, and the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments, only work if the people who swore that oath uphold it on a daily basis for_ everyone _: from the most wealthy business magnate to the homeless street urchin. If the people charged with that oath violate those rights, or through inaction allow others to violate each other's rights without a fight, then_ no one's _rights in this country are safe. Do you understand now?"_

 _"Yeah," Mabel nodded, softly. "Yeah I do." She gave a pained sigh. "I've done them all a disservice, haven't I? " Unbidden the line from_ On Flanders Fields _popped into her head._ If ye break faith with those who died…

 _"It's not too late," Soos said. "It's never too late. Go out there, and keep your own oath as best you can. And try to be the best person you can be outside of that. No one's perfect, but neither were they, and they're not asking you to be perfect now." Soos smiled at her. "And be happy. For me. Please."_

 _"I will, Soos," Mabel said nodding firmly with a determination she hadn't felt in what seemed to be a lifetime. "I promise."_

 _"Good," he said, turning to walk towards the chapel entrance, out into the setting sun._

 _"Soos, wait," she said quickly._

 _He turned and gave her a knowing look, as if he knew what he was about to say._

 _"Yes, Pinecone?"_

 _"Will I see you again?" She asked timidly. "You know, when the time comes?"_

 _He smiled. "I think that can be arranged. Oh, and before I forget, give my regards to Dipper and Pacifica. I always knew they'd end up together someday." And he continued walking back. Into the bright light now shining through the door._

Mabel Pines woke up, still in her pew, blinking tiredness and tears out of her eyes.

"That," she said to the air around her, "was more than just a dream." She stood up, a spring to her movements, as if the weight of two countries had been lifted off her shoulders at last.

Which it had, in a way.

 _I'm sorry for being a whiny jerk for four years guys_ , directing the thought at the graves outside _. I'll do better from now on. I promise. Rest in peace._

She walked out of the chapel, and out of the cemetery. She had a brother to apologize too.

 _Twenty-four hours later_

Dipper Pines stood next to his sister and his wife behind the Stone of Remembrance, looking out over the reflecting pool at the Cross of Sacrifice, glowing in the setting sun, as the dulcet, mournful sound of a United States Army bugler from the Third Infantry Regiment playing Taps echoed out over the cemetery.

Dipper looked at his sister. Mabel had come back in a taxi cab, knocked on their door, given him a hug and said he understood what he was trying to tell her and she was sorry.

He'd been mildly embarrassed and happy at the same time. Mildly embarrassed because one thing had led to another with Pacifica, and they'd been so busy…celebrating that they hadn't even heard her leave.

And happy because his sister seemed calmer, more at peace with herself than she had in four years; she was still just as heartbroken, no sane man or woman who'd seen what they'd seen could fail to be, but she wasn't letting her heartbreak control her life or define who she was anymore.

Which meant even now, four years to the day since the battle that had taken place here, at the final portion of the unveiling of the cemetery and memorial to this land, he was happy.

The bugler abruptly stopped, and Dipper resisted the urge to go to his sister.

Two minutes later, the Last Post, played by a Canadian Army bugler of the Royal Canadian Regiment echoed out. Different in cadence and tone, it somehow managed to be both more upbeat and just as mournful as Taps at the same time.

And, inspired, by the ceremony at the Menin Gate in Ypres, Belgium, Taps and the Last Post, would be played every evening at sundown, for as long as this cemetery existed.

When the strains of mourning music at last died for the evening, Dipper and Pacifica walked over to his Mabel.

"I'm glad you're feeling better," Dipper said, smiling at her.

Mabel smiled back at him, a genuine warm smile. "So am I," she said feelingly.

"If I may ask, what changed? What brought you out of it?"

"A dream," she said simply. "A dream and a conversation with an old friend of ours, that finally forced me to acknowledge that I was doing these people a disservice by putting my life on hold. By the way, Soos wanted me to pass along his congratulations to you and Pacifica."

Dipper's eyes widened, and he and Pax gave each other a startled glance. "Soos? You spoke to Soos?"

"I'm not sure if it was a dream, a vision, or both, but it's Gravity Falls so who knows," Mabel said simply.

"Who knows, indeed," Dipper said softly staring at his sister in wonder.

Mabel smiled at him. "Come on," she said, "let's go back to our hotel. We have a job to do at home."

As they walked out of the park, the three Pines stopped, as the haunting sound of church bells, carried over the wind from the church at the edge of town filtered over the cemetery.

He looked back, over the rows monuments, and the rows of headstones and nodded, remembering something President Truman once said.

As these bells ring, honored dead rest. Freedom lives.

A/N: This story is dedicated to the servicemen and women of the United States and the Commonwealth of Nations who died in the First World War (1914-1918)

"THEIR NAME LIVETH FOR EVERMORE"


End file.
